Find Them Dead

3 Monday 26 November

When anyone asked Meg Magellan what she did for a living, she told them straight up that she was a drug dealer. Which she really was, but the good sort, she would add hastily, breaking into a grin. In her role as a key account manager for one of the UK’s largest pharmaceutical companies, Kempsons, she sold and merchandized their range of over-the-counter products into the Tesco store group.

She also tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to augment her income by betting on horses. Never big stakes, just the occasional small flutter — a love of which she’d got from her late husband, Nick, whose dream had been to own a racehorse. The closest he’d got was to own one leg of a steeplechaser called Colin’s Brother. She’d kept the share after Nick’s death, as a link to him, and followed the horse in the papers, always putting a small bet on and quite often being pleasantly surprised by the nag getting a place — with even the occasional win. Whenever the horse ran at a reasonably local meeting, she would do her best to go along and place a bet and cheer him on, along with the two mates, Daniel Crown and Peter Dean, who owned the other three legs between them. She’d become so much closer to them both since Nick died. In a small way they kept Nick alive to her and she could see his humour in them.

At 4.30 a.m., Meg’s alarm woke her with a piercing beep-beep-beep, shrieking away a dream in which Colin’s Brother was heading to the finishing post but being strongly challenged, as she shouted encouragement at the top of her voice.

Avoiding the temptation to hit the snooze button and grab a few more precious minutes of sleep beneath the snug warmth of her duvet — and continue the dream — she swung her legs out of the bed and downed the glass of water beside her.

She had to get up now. No option. At 9 a.m., in less than five hours, she was presenting her company’s latest cough-and-cold remedy to the Tesco buying team, seventy miles of stressful traffic to the north of here. Normally, she’d have stayed at a Premier Inn close to the company’s headquarters. A ten-minute drive instead of the three hours facing her now, if she was lucky with the traffic. But this wasn’t a normal day.

Today, her daughter — and only surviving child — Laura, was heading off to Thailand and then on to Ecuador as part of her gap year. She and Laura had rarely been apart for more than a few days. They had always been close, but even closer since five years ago, when they’d been driving back to Brighton from a camping holiday in the Scottish Highlands.

Always car-sick, Laura sat in the front. After Nick had done a long spell at the wheel of their VW camper van, Bessie, Meg had taken over from her husband, who then sat in the back with their fifteen-year-old son Will, and had slept. As she’d slowed for roadworks on the M1, an uninsured plumber, busily texting his girlfriend, had ploughed his van into the back of their vehicle, killing Nick and Will instantly. She and Laura had survived, and their injuries had healed, but their lives would never be the same again — there was no going back to normal family life. Meg would have given anything to have even the most mundane day with her family one more time. Of course, friends and relatives had rallied around her and Laura in the days and months after the accident, when it felt as if they were living in a surreal bubble, but eventually and inevitably life went on, grief had to be dealt with, and as the years passed people stopped talking about Nick and Will.

Not one day went by when she didn’t think of them and what might have been.

Meg had stayed home to be with her daughter on what was to be their last night together for several months. This summer, Laura had saved up for this gap-year backpacking trip, with her best friend, before she went off to study Veterinary Science at the University of Edinburgh.

Nick, who had worked for the same company as Meg, had often jokily discussed with her what life would be like one day as empty-nesters when Will and Laura eventually left home. A positive man, they’d made all kinds of plans — perhaps to take a gap year themselves, which neither of them had done in their teens — and head off to travel Europe, and maybe beyond, in their beloved Bessie.

Laura was a good kid — no, correct that, she thought — a great kid. One of the many things she loved about her bright, sparky daughter was the way she cared about animals. Meg was charged now with looking after Laura’s precious pet guinea pig, Horace, and her two gerbils, as well as her imperious Burmese cat, Daphne.

When she came back home tonight to their small, pretty, mock-Tudor semi close to Hove seafront, Meg was painfully aware she would be truly alone. Home to a new reality. A real lengthy period alone. And when Laura returned from her gap year, she’d then be getting ready to move to university. No more music blasting from Laura’s bedroom. No more questions on homework to help her daughter with. No more running commentaries on who was going out with who, or the geeky boy who had been trying to chat her up. A big, lonely, empty nest.

God, she loved her daughter so much. Laura was smart, fun and incredibly streetwise. Above all, Meg always knew she could trust her to take care of herself when she went out into town with her friends. Every night, apart from when she had to spend time away from home, travelling on business, they would sit down and have supper together and share their days.

But not any more. Tonight, she’d be alone with her memories. With Laura’s beloved pets — hoping and praying none would die while she was away — and with the photographs around the house of Nick and Will with her and Laura when they were a family of four. You have children? people would ask. Meg would reply, ‘I have two.’ It wasn’t true, but she did, back then.

‘I am a mother of two children, and I am a wife. But my son and my husband are dead.’ She never found those conversations any easier.

And to add to her concerns, her employer for the past twenty-odd years, ever since she had left uni, would be moving next year from nearby Horsham just forty minutes’ drive from here, up to Bedfordshire — a two-and-a-half-hour grind. No date had been fixed yet but, when the time came, she would have to make the choice either to stay on or take the redundancy package on offer.

Meg showered, got herself ready then went down into the kitchen to make some breakfast and a strong coffee. Daphne meowed, whingeing for her breakfast. She opened a tin and the cat jumped up onto the work surface, barged her arm and began eating, though she had barely started scooping the fishy contents out. ‘Greedy guts!’ Meg chided, setting the bowl on the floor. The cat jumped down and began to scoff the food as if she hadn’t been fed for a month.

Moments after Meg sat at the table, beneath a large framed photograph on the wall of Colin’s Brother passing the finishing post at Plumpton Racecourse half a length ahead of the next horse, she heard soft footsteps behind her and felt Laura’s arms around her. Laura’s face close against hers, wet with tears. Hugging her. She ignored the five earrings cutting into her cheek.

‘I’m going to miss you so much, Mum.’

‘Not as much as I’m going to miss you.’ Meg turned and gripped both of her daughter’s hands. Laura’s dark hair was styled in a chic but strange way that made her think of garden topiary. She had a scrunchie on one wrist and a Fitbit on the other and was dressed in striped paper-bag trousers and a white T-shirt printed with the words, in an old-fashioned typeface, YOU MAKE ME WONDER.

Meg smiled through her own tears and pointed at it. ‘That’s for sure!’

Her daughter had changed so much in these past few years. And recently seemed to be changing week on week with new piercings appearing. From nothing a year ago, she now had, in addition to her ears, a nose ring and a tongue stud, and, horror of horrors, she’d had her first tattoo just this past weekend — a small hieroglyphic on her shoulder which Laura said was an ancient Tibetan symbol for protecting travellers. Meg could hardly argue with that.

Laura’s expression suddenly darkened as her eyes darted to the right. Freeing her hands, she pointed at a pile of plastic carrier bags. ‘Mum, what are those?’ she chided.

Meg shrugged. ‘I’m afraid I’m not Superwoman, I forget things sometimes, OK?’

Laura shook her head at her. ‘OK, right, we’re meant to be saving the planet. What if everyone forgot to take their own bags to the supermarket every time they went shopping?’

‘I’ll do my best to remember in future.’

Laura wagged a finger at her then leaned forward and kissed her. ‘I know you will, you’re a good person.’

‘What time are you leaving?’ Meg choked on the words.

‘Cassie’s mum is picking us up at 6 a.m. to take us to the airport.’

Cassie and Laura had been inseparable for years. She’d been the first to get a piercing and of course Laura had to follow. Now Cassie had three tattoos — God knows what Laura was going to come back with after their long trip.

‘You’ll keep in touch and let me know when you’ve landed?’

‘I’ll WhatsApp you every day!’

‘You’re all I have in the world, you know that, don’t you, my angel?’

‘And you’re all I have, too, Mum!’

‘Until you meet the right person.’

‘Yech! Don’t think there’s much danger of that. Although maybe when we get to the Galapagos next year, I might kidnap a sea lion and bring it back.’

Meg smiled, knowing she was only half jesting. Over the years, Laura had brought all kinds of wounded creatures into their house, including a fox cub, a robin and a hedgehog. ‘Be careful in the water, won’t you — don’t forget about those dangerous rip tides and currents?’

‘Hello, Mum! Didn’t we grow up on the seaside? I’ll be careful! You’ll look after all the animals — don’t forget the gerbils?’

‘I’ve got all your instructions.’

Laura had written a detailed list of their food and the times they liked to be fed.

‘And special hugs and treats for Master Horace?’ She was struggling to speak now, her voice choked. ‘Don’t be sad, Mum. I love you so much and I’ll still love you just as much when I’m over there.’

Meg turned her head and looked at her daughter. ‘Sure, I know you will,’ she said.

And the moment you get on that plane, you will have forgotten all about me.

That’s how it works.